The web is bursting at the seams with search marketing information and too much of it is completely untrue. Legal Professionals who try to do their own SEO are often unaware of which strategies should take precedence, which have some value, and which are a complete waste of effort.
Law firms that decide to retain web professionals have the advantage of not having to make their own strategy decisions, but more importantly, they don't have to spend the time implementing the often time-consuming SEO tasks.
As with any professional dynamic, the relationship between a law firm and its search engine specialist must be based on mutual trust. While the lawyer needs to be fully aware of the tactics, progress, and results being made by their search engine consultant, they also need to trust that the SEO knows what is needed for them to succeed and isn't doing anything that will hurt the firm's website and/or reputation.
"A change will do you (and your website) good". If you are unwilling to have optimizations made, then you simply can't have your site optimized. While link building, social media, paid-search, etc, are all key components to getting rankings online, if you want your law firm's site to perform for your targeted words, you have to be willing to make keyword and structural changes to the site itself. Change is good. Keep in mind that the goal here is not to just improve your search engine rankings, but help you increase your client base. Too many law firms (and their SEOs) lose sight of this point.
The net is a dynamic, constantly evolving, place. New sites are going up, old sites are coming down. New stuff is added to the internet every second. Combine that with the fact that search engine algorithms are in a constant state of change and you've got a roller coaster of rankings.
Several legal sites, especially older ones, are built by designers that don't know much about SEO. These sites "look pretty" but don't do so hot in search pages because of bad structure and missing components. In extreme cases, you might have to be willing to quit a site altogether. Other times the site may be salvageable with several structural and architectural modifications. Not making these changes can cripple your web marketing. Don't be afraid to make the big changes needed to take advantage the benefits SEO can have for your firm.
Unfortunately, many unscrupulous law firm SEO specialists sell magic claiming to be able to get your firm to the top of the search engine rankings in a very short time. As a result, many lawyers want immediate results and don't trust search consultants in general. They want to spend very little money and they have very high expectations.
